On a hill overlooking a road in Anbar Province, Iraq.
Mani (Mainstream): How many times has our Most Beloved lain like this in Arabia, awaiting the Meccan polytheists?
Modi (Moderate): Quite a few. He did so even when he was not certain that the Meccans would come at all. He was a good general. He shared the boredom and the misery as well as the excitement, the danger, and the profits.
Mani: I never quite understood the stories told about his robbing caravans. Is not that like highway robbery or piracy?
Modi: It was a different time, Mani, and different circumstances. The Jews of Yathrib invited him to be a judge and settle disputes among the tribes of Jews and Arabs in and around their city.
Mani: Yes, I remember that.
Modi: That was only the starting point. The more disputes came his way, the more he discerned their needs to be greater than they thought. The residents of Yathrib needed a complete government with laws that regulated their commerce and their daily affairs.
Mani: I see. Since the Messenger was in the process of developing and teaching the new religion, he was the obvious person to become the new leader. Since the disputes brought to him were in the commercial and daily affairs area anyway, his decisions in early cases could conceivably have taken on the force of law if applied to ensuing cases.
Modi: You are right. It would be stare decisis[1], pure and simple. However, the problem with Yathrib was that the Messenger was spread very thin and could not give full attention to each of his tasks.
Mani: Are you saying that he made mistakes or was not up to the job?
Modi: By no means am I saying that. Nonetheless, I have a suspicion that many laws would be different, had he the time to reflect and the time to teach the people about fairness and propriety.
Mani: I suspect that you are saying that the unfortunate war with the Meccans had an effect on his time—and perhaps his patience.
Modi: I would think it would if he were an ordinary man like you and me. Our Most Beloved seems to have been an extraordinary person, and he took on an enormous job in Yathrib. One of the problems that he did not anticipate was that when the families of the believers followed them to Yathrib, now Medina [City of the Prophet] and more Arabs fled Mecca to join him, they swelled the ranks of the believers. Muhammad had not the food or the funds to house them and feed them.
Mani: Are you saying that he just turned to caravan robbing to feed his people?
Modi: It was not that simple. Since the Prophet and his followers were forced to leave Mecca and relocate elsewhere, a de facto state of war existed between the two factions. The believers considered the Meccans at fault in their dire predicament and that anything that happened to the Meccans as a result was deserved.
You and I both know that there are no kept secrets in the Middle East, except from Europeans and Americans. It was the same back in the seventh century. Muhammad discovered the Meccan plan for a rich caravan from Syria, which was expected to pass near Medina on its return trip to Mecca. The Prophet let his followers know that he planned to attack the caravan.
Mani: Did the Meccans know about Muhammad’s plan?
Modi: The Meccans knew before the caravan left Syria. No secret is safe, remember? And they knew they had to protect this caravan. It consisted of about one thousand camels with valuable merchandise, accompanied by only forty armed riders. The Meccans consequently assembled a powerful force to protect the caravan and defeat the believers.
Mani: You have a strange look on your face. You are holding something back. Out with it, Modi.
Modi: You are too sharp for me, Mani. (smiles sheepishly) What the Meccans did not know was that the caravan was not Muhammad’s primary objective. He was trying to lure the Meccan forces out into the field. Medina lived under the threat of a Meccan invasion, but the two sides had not yet met in open combat. When finally they did meet, the Meccans had to contend with Abu Bakr’s forces on one side and Umar’s on the other. However, the believers were very poorly armed and greatly outnumbered. Nonetheless, our fighters believed in their Prophet and knew in their hearts that, no matter what happened, they personally could not lose. If they survived, there would be spoils to divide evenly; if they did not survive, their families would be given their share, and they themselves would go directly to paradise.
Mani: And the Meccans fought with the fear of dying while we fought welcoming death.
Modi. Yes, it made a huge difference. And the spoils made a difference in the morale of the believers. Their ranks swelled even more.
Mani: Did that not happen at Badr?
Modi: Yep. And that changed the course of the entire world.
The following day in Baghdad.
Radi (Radical): Good morning, you two. The news is not good.
Mani: Why not? Did the Iranians lose more missiles or something?
Radi: Besides that, al-Qaeda lost more men last night in Anbar.
Modi: Serves them right for trying to attack a small village.
Radi: The people fighting al-Qaeda do not know what they are doing.
Mani: They seem to be winning the battles. They must know something.
Radi: They are on the wrong side. They should be fighting with AQ, not against it.
Mani: Radi does not get the picture yet. Radi, AQ is fighting them and has been for some time. How can the villagers be on the wrong side when they are on their own side? They are protecting themselves.
Radi: But the government is weak and corrupt.
Modi: You dummy! We know that. Nonetheless, it is our government; the only one we have. If we can stop the nonsense and establish peace, we can fix anything that needs fixing. Your friends are not solving anything; they are the problem.
Radi: But the prime minister is Shi’ite, most of his cabinet is Shi’ite, he has many Iranian friends, they are all Shi’ite, and his stooge, Muqtada al-Sadr is Shi’ite. Even the great al-Sistani is Shi’ite.
Mani: Modi, I somehow knew that Radi was full of Shi’ite!
Modi: Mani, look at that face! Could he be angry?
Mani: No, just impatient. It is lunchtime, and it is your turn to buy.
Modi: When is it ever his turn to buy?
Mani: In the evening during Ramadan, when everything is free—if you know the right families.
HJS
[1] ['To stand by decided matters']. Decisions made in early cases should stand in similar cases.
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